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Antigone: Plays
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By birth Antigone was a princess, the daughter of a king. The role that Antigone actually played would have normally been done by a female slave. Wives spent their time bearing children and directing a household. Female slaves did the menial chores such as cooking, cleaning, and housework. Antigone and Ismene would have done the menial chores as well as the shopping which was mainly done by men. When you have a disability such as Oedipus, you are much better off if you can be cared for by loving family.
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The Antigone has always been one of the most popular of Greek tragedies. Though the incident on which the plot is based -- the resolution of Antigone to surrender her life rather than leave her brother's corpse unburied -- appeals less forcibly to modern than to ancient sentiment, yet the general motive of the play, the conflict between human law and the individual conscience, is one of deep and universal significance. Various doubts have been raised as to the moral purpose of the composition. Should Antigone, it is asked, be regarded as an innocent victim to the force of circumstances? Or is the balance of guilt more evenly divided, and are Creon and Antigone both deserving of punishment, the one for his contempt for the divine laws, the other for her defiance of established order? As to this latter view, it is difficult to see how it could ever have been maintained, except by those whose minds were biased by preconceived opinions concerning the proper functions of tragedy.
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Antigone does dare. She challenges Creon on grounds of moral principle, citing the will of the gods, who dictate that the dead must be buried, regardless of sins accumulated during life. It is ... an inconceivable political act - a solitary woman violates the king's decree, both for the love of her brother and to claim her proper social role. And then, in an act of extreme protest, she commits suicide, initiating a chain of events that will add Creon's wife and son to the roll of the dead. From Sophocles' point of view, Antigone's suicide is not a nihilistic or pathological act, but rather the only possible way to restore her dignity. The play then unveils, layer by layer, the ethical and ideological motivations for Antigone's revolt.
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Antigone first premiered in Sibiu, Romania at the Cisnadioara fortress as a site specific work. This adaptation of Antigone was conceived to be performed by a single female actor. The text was translated from Watanabe's Spanish poem into English and Turkish. A single woman, the Narrator, inhabited all the roles in the play morphing from Narrator to Creon to Tireseas to Antigone herself.
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The National Asian American Theatre Company's production of Sophocles's Antigone is stylish, yet it lacks an emotional core. Directed by Jean Randich, it features several striking visual pictures and an engaging use of the chorus. However, it is tediously paced, with the majority of the exchanges between characters missing the necessary vitality and passion that make the play more than just a philosophical debate.
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Antigone was written at a time of national fervor. In 440 BCE, shortly after the play was released, Sophocles was appointed as one of the ten generals to lead a military expedition against Samos Island. It is striking that a prominent play in a time of such imperialism contains no political propaganda, no impassioned apostrophe, makes not a single contemporary allusion or passing reference to Athens, and betrays no patriotic interests whatsoever.[3] Rather than become sidetracked with the issues of the time, Antigone remains completely focused on the characters and themes within the play, and ... remains timeless.
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